POINT DE VUE

CAMEROUN :: To die Stupid: Sacrificed Generations and Electoral politics in Cameroon.Now that Biya’s “Communal Liberalism: has been exposed as a fraud, an ideology with no sense of ethics, embodied tradition and predictive accuracy that could have generated a spirit of decision capable to anticipate risks and benefits and remedy problems as they occur along the way. Therefore, the capacity to build something new while understanding the action and result of public policies on ordinary Cameroonians.

Now, no one doubt that generations of Cameroonians, born from the end of the sixties up to now, had had nothing raw deal from this Faustian bargain with the regime of Yaoundé but how the ideology of communal liberalism, in practice, hegemonized the primacy of the president over the people. Even with this kind of abysmal record, the regime CNU/CPDM has never lost power and it is getting ready for another political coronation with Soviet style score. It goes without saying that this kind of popular coronation is an evident sign of malignant idiocy which textbook definition is doing to same thing over and over and expecting different results.

If the opposition has any soul, however, they should have abstain from this electoral farce or presented a single candidate. The opposition, however, is also part of Biya’s sacrificed generation. Indeed, if you live 35 years in a country where the authorities are so corrupt, so unfair to people, moral compromise becomes the new normal. So, we have a government and an opposition we deserve. An opposition so compromise to settle for stepping board for Biya’s next coronation.

Indeed, folks who had too high hopes with Biya’s communal liberalism are either naïve, cynical and opportunistic.

There are also those who leave the country instead of sticking around to effect social change. Thus, the luckiest manage to sale their talents and make a living outside of the shithole Cameroon has now turned into. The unluckiest one are either sold as slaves or die in the Mediterranean Sea which has become a gigantic cemetery.

Thus, as Biya’s gerontocratic regime digs in, it becomes increasingly difficult to change anything in our lifetime. In the meantime, we are the sacrificed generation and the generation of our children are sacrificed generation as well and this is an indictment of the generation of our fathers which were all stupid, selfish and entitled lazy egomaniacs who have yet to know how to run a country without running it into the ground. By most account, the Biya’s generation with his 100 billion CFA trips to nowhere is symptomatic of a selfish, impulsive, highly indulged bunch. More so than other age group in Cameroon. Our misfortune is that matters of the greatest seriousness are now in the hands of basically unserious people.

All these men in power in Cameroon never care about the details of policy design, implementation, and technocratic commitment. As with their planet-sized egos, they never saw politics as a serious business, requiring hard, serious work. Their idiocy , lack of effort and extended vacation is taken almost as a mark of distinction – how else can we explain streets being closed and people dancing in the streets to applaud somebody coming back from an extended vacation in Switzerland? Where is the impeccable economic logic when streets are closed shutting down the economy in Yaoundé and people taking time off to dance on the streets for somebody coming back from extended vacations if not a disdain for public service?

These are highly delinquent people who see public service as a way to gain money, attention and to show off and bearing no culpability for the suffering of the most vulnerable in our society and for the deracinating void swallowing up so many others.

To put this into context, all the gerontocrats in power were born during the colony which means before 1960s. They are all influenced by the myths and rituals of the colonial state and indifferent to policy which means a colonial imaginary rather than a national one which means not from a perspective of government and policies but from ways they are perceived. Taken together, an emphasis on the politics of respectability, to be as powerful as the colonial master. How that politics of respectability leads to what Mickael Foessel calls “la logique du Pire.”

The optimistic version of this story is that it’s only when the chips are down we discover what people are truly capable of. Getting rid of Biya might reveal reserves of courage and innovation that have lain dormant for decades in Cameroon. That will be the moment for a more heroic form of political leadership to rise from the ashes. Otherwise, we will all die idiots.